The worst bug for me is when the trains crash

[stuartrayner]

There have been a lot of comments lamenting derailments on trailing points. Having thought about this, with the exception that crossovers, slips etc should operate as a single A/B point, is it not prototypical?

I know spring loaded points are common in many places, but in others would the FPL bar (or clamplocks on electric / pneumatic points - they should all be zero tolerance) prevent the blades from moving, thus actually creating a derailment?

Just a thought.

[damiende]

I don't want the crashes to be a 100 percent realistic in how the trains get damaged etc. I just want them to react correctly when you hit something. Like for example I was driving a passenger train on the Hagen route. And I unhooked the wagons from the train. The I hit the brakes and and went into reverse. What should have happened when I hit the wagons was this.

The trains would crash into the cars maybe climbed on top of them and then eventually stopping.
What happens now is that the train hits something and then takes off like a cannonball in the opposite direction. And this actually makes the game look like a action shooter or something like that.

My suggestion is that you either remove it like it is now. Or turn it into something that looks like a proper train crash.


Daniel

[jamespetts]

It seems to me that there is very little point in attempting to model damage done to rail vehicles in a collision - "political" issues aside, it really is entirely peripheral to the thing (normal railway operations) that is being simulated, such that to expend effort on it would be wasteful when such effort could instead be spent on more worthwhile features. Indeed, it would be far more worthwhile to try to model train and signalling failures than it would be to try to model what are, most fortunately, extremely rare occurrences of serious collisions.

There should, of course, be some visual representation of a collision where one does arise, which should bear some relationship to the way in which it was caused: since there is inevitably the possibility of collisions created by allowing players to drive trains, they must be represented with at least a basic degree of accuracy: showing more or less how the rail vehicles move when they come off the rails. The more minor the collision, the more important that it is to be realistically modelled. Going any further than that would really be as pointless as spending great effort reproducing in detail the menu from the buffet cars of different eras!

[BR7MT]

I don't mean damage like fire or serious structural deformation, I am talking about minor stuff e.g. crinkled body sides from a depot sideswipe (teaches you to stable the stock in a more sensible manner). If you couple up at too fast a speed, the wagon could come off the rails and the buffers get bent.

Mind you, you could always have an AI breakdown train that comes along and re-rails it for you!

Actually, that might take a lot of coding to work...!

Regards,

Dan

[damiende]

It seems to me that there is very little point in attempting to model damage done to rail vehicles in a collision - "political" issues aside, it really is entirely peripheral to the thing (normal railway operations) that is being simulated, such that to expend effort on it would be wasteful when such effort could instead be spent on more worthwhile features. Indeed, it would be far more worthwhile to try to model train and signalling failures than it would be to try to model what are, most fortunately, extremely rare occurrences of serious collisions.

There should, of course, be some visual representation of a collision where one does arise, which should bear some relationship to the way in which it was caused: since there is inevitably the possibility of collisions created by allowing players to drive trains, they must be represented with at least a basic degree of accuracy: showing more or less how the rail vehicles move when they come off the rails. The more minor the collision, the more important that it is to be realistically modelled. Going any further than that would really be as pointless as spending great effort reproducing in detail the menu from the buffet cars of different eras!

Well put this is exactly what I am trying to say.

Daniel

[bigvern]

If a train "runs through" trailing points that are set in the opposite direction, it will normally push the switch blade to one side (causing considerable damage in the process). It is unlikely it would ride up over the switch blade and derail.

As regards the earlier comments about Flight Sim - well for starters you don't see the AI crashing into buildings or the ground because of sloppy AI or programming. In the last two versions of FS, MS removed the Twin Towers partly to reflect the real change to the scenery following the 9/11 events and obviously to prevent the sickos re-enacting their own "Allah, Ackbah" scenario. Besides, when planes crash in FS you get a bit of smoke from the undercarriage but the fuselage and all the fittings remain intact and undeformed.

[stuartrayner]

If a train "runs through" trailing points that are set in the opposite direction, it will normally push the switch blade to one side (causing considerable damage in the process). It is unlikely it would ride up over the switch blade and derail.

Good point Vern, I wasnt thinking straight yesterday. I now realise the weight of a train running through trailing points would probably be enough to snap the FPL bar, point stretcher bar and surrounding stuff clean in two. Powered points probably even more so.

As for accidents in general, some kind of representation is needed to let you know that you did wrong, but it should be brief and to the point, and above all done with taste and sensitivity.

Sadly, I have read posts in the past that advocate more disturbing representations. Why would anyone in their right mind want to see that? If you really want to (perhaps as part of a safety study or something), you can recreate the circumstances and the examine what went wrong, but there is never any call to see the gory consequences IMHO.

[damiende]

If a train "runs through" trailing points that are set in the opposite direction, it will normally push the switch blade to one side (causing considerable damage in the process). It is unlikely it would ride up over the switch blade and derail.

As regards the earlier comments about Flight Sim - well for starters you don't see the AI crashing into buildings or the ground because of sloppy AI or programming. In the last two versions of FS, MS removed the Twin Towers partly to reflect the real change to the scenery following the 9/11 events and obviously to prevent the sickos re-enacting their own "Allah, Ackbah" scenario. Besides, when planes crash in FS you get a bit of smoke from the undercarriage but the fuselage and all the fittings remain intact and undeformed.

And not to mention the fact that if you crash into the ground with a plane. It doesn't bounce straight up into the sky like a rubber ball.



Daniel

[ratsarrse]

I've always thought that games should always make you see the consequences of your actions. That's why I think games that trivialise violence by making it cartoonish and consequence-free are verging on poor taste, while the ones that attempt to be fairly realistic are on the right path. When it comes to a sim, it's a bit harder to have meaningful consequences for getting it wrong since it's such a sandbox to begin with.

The key for me is immersion. As much as possible, I want to feel that I'm there driving that train. Anything that jars, anything that reminds me that actually I'm just sat here in the living room drinking a beer is a bad thing. Right now, I find the crashes a little bit jarring at times. One resulted in my loco flying through the air at 3000 mph at around 2000 feet after an unexpected diversion into a siding at 40 mph. Crazy stuff. Other, less dramatic crashes seem to deliver the pop-up message to tell you what went wrong quite quickly, whereas the one where rail sim thought it was actually flight sim seemed to go on forever. I think I'd prefer the accidents to not be quite as outrageous as that - 2 or 3 seconds to illustrate that things have gone wrong before the scenario exits would be enough for me.